Second State Syndrome?

[Jason Perlow]

Do you think New Jersey suffers from a "second state syndrome", I.E., overshadowed by New York?

Do you think the restaurants reflect any of this or are they coming into their own?

[David Corcoran]

New Jersey is certainly overshadowed by New York, but then everything is overshadowed by New York. On the other hand, I've never found that the differences in restaurants are all that glaring. Many New Jersey chefs have cooked on both sides of the river, and some choose to relocate not because they're any less good but for the same reasons other people relocate: life in the suburbs is much less complicated than in the city. If I did a blind tasting between, say, Jean-Georges and Nicholas, or Alain Ducasse and the Ryland Inn, I bet you I couldn't tell you which was which.

[CooksQuest]

IMHO, Hoboken doesn't suffer from that syndrome. Maybe it's the proximity, or perhaps it's my own bias -- I live there.